Transport in Winnipeg - Roads and Expressways

Roads and Expressways

Winnipeg is unique among cities its size in that it does not have freeways within the urban area. Beginning in 1958, the primarily suburban Metropolitan council proposed a system of freeways, including one that would have bisected the downtown area. The plan culminated in the monumental Winnipeg Area Transportation Study (WATS) of 1968. The extensive freeway plan faced stiff community opposition and was deemed over-ambitious. It was not implemented as a concerted undertaking, but construction of major traffic corridors follows the study to this day, including expressways such as Route 165/Bishop Grandin Blvd., although most are in the form of urban arterial roads, and no freeways are likely to be constructed within the urban area anytime soon. However, a one mile stretch of freeway was built in the late 1950s, called the Disraeli Freeway (part of the Disraeli Bridge project), which is part of Route 42.

A four-lane highway (the Perimeter Highway, which is mostly an expressway around the city (also known as a ring road) with interchanges and at-grade intersections) bypasses the city entirely, allowing travellers on the Trans-Canada Highway to avoid the city and continue east or west. The Perimeter Highway was chosen over the freeways that would have been in the city. Now the city is planning to create an Inner Perimeter Highway with Route 17, Route 90, Route 165, and Route 20.

Many Manitoba provincial highways enter Winnipeg, but the majority lose their highway designation and become Winnipeg Routes once they reach the Perimeter Highway. At present, only two provincial highways pass entirely through the Winnipeg area:

• Highway 1 and
• Highway 59 (which is a northern continuation of US 59) and is also designated as Route 20 (or Lagimodière Boulevard) in Winnipeg.

Several highways also converge on Winnipeg without passing entirely through the city. These include:

• Highway 2, which meets with Highway 3 at the southwest Perimeter,
• Highway 3, which becomes McGillivray Boulevard in Winnipeg,
• Highway 6, which is the main highway to northern Manitoba,
• Highway 7, which becomes Route 90 (known through various street names) in Winnipeg,
• Highway 8, which becomes Route 180 (known as McPhillips Street) in Winnipeg,
• Highway 9, which becomes Route 52 (known as Main Street) in Winnipeg, and
• Highway 15, which becomes Route 115 (known as Dugald Road) in Winnipeg, and
• Highway 75 (a northern continuation of I-29 and US 75), which becomes Route 42 (known as Pembina Highway) in Winnipeg. (This road is an exception to the rule that only two provincial highways penetrate the Perimeter Highway, as Highway 75 actually continues until the intersection with Bison Drive / Chancellor Matheson Road (which leads to the Fort Garry campus of the University of Manitoba)).

One noted feature of Winnipeg's urban road network is Confusion Corner, a complex intersection where four arterial roads and a special Winnipeg Transit bus lane are funnelled into a rhomboid-shaped loop of one-way streets at a junction with Osborne Street.